


Aftermath

by IrLaimsaAraLath



Series: Pride Goeth [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Blood and Violence, Depression, F/M, Rough Sex, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 18:11:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12965415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IrLaimsaAraLath/pseuds/IrLaimsaAraLath
Summary: After Solas breaks Niyera's heart at Crestwood, she has difficulty dealing with it.  She pulls away, turns inward, and sets herself on a path to self-destruction.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is primarily an exercise in self-indulgence. I tripped on @galadrieljones and her analysis of the variety of Lavellan options during the final Solas romance scene, and I fell hard into some feelings. I can’t have that, so gotta work that shit out. Nothing naughty below. Just typical fantasy-type violence, romantic-type grief, and some partaking in self-destruction.

 

The door to her quarters swung shut behind her, clicking as the latch fell closed.  So late in the evening, the hall was largely unoccupied, and each of her footfalls echoed off the stone.  Dorian and Varric sat engaged in a game of Wicked Grace at the far end of the hall, with Krem and Bull as spectators.  All were caught within the frame of light from the hearth’s fire.  Their voices filled the emptiness with boisterous laughter, but as Niyera approached, they grew nearly silent.  They all looked up at her, some more subtly than others, but only Varric spoke.  

 

“Inquisitor!  Just in time to see Sparkler be humbled by my mastery of Wicked Grace!  Have a seat and join us,” he invited, his tone of voice upbeat and welcoming as it frequently was when he was setting up a con or a particularly embellished story.  Her eyes barely strayed from their forward gaze, but when the firelight caught them, Varric could see they were darkly rimmed and hollow.  She offered only a few words as she passed:  “Thank you, Varric, but no.”  There was no inflection in her voice, neither happy nor sad -- it was just uncomfortably flat.  With nothing further, she exited the hall.

 

Dorian shifted in his seat to watch her departing form before passing a concerned and meaningful glance at Bull.  Krem had already begun to rise when Bull’s hand on his shoulder stopped him.  A silent understanding passed between the men as the Qunari rose, followed after the Inquisitor, and disappeared into the night.  Dorian’s mouth twisted at one corner, and he made a sound that was rougher than a sigh and possessed of a deep and definite vexation.  Tossing his cards face down on the table, the legs of his chair made a skin-crawling screech against the stone as he abruptly stood.  “I need something harder to drink,” the Tevinter stated before departing for the tavern.

 

Varric threw down his cards as well and scrubbed a rough hand across his creased brow.  Krem leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between, as his eyes cut to the side.  “How long is she going to do this?” he asked, and Varric could only shake his head as he tapped his deck of cards against the table sharply.  “Until the outside hurts as much as the inside.”  The dwarf slipped the cards back into their box and tucked it within an inner pocket of his vest before he looked dubiously at Krem.  “Hopefully, she’ll still be alive when she reaches that point.”  Varric’s broad chest heaved with a sigh and he shrugged his coat over his shoulders, saying, “Look, I’ll see ya later, kid,” as he made his way out of the hall as well.

 

* * *

 

Almost every night for the past two weeks, she’d been going out on her own.  She always had an excuse -- a small camp of Red Templars, reports of minor rifts, red lyrium smugglers.  “ _ Nothing I can’t handle on my own _ ,” she would say when offered company or an extra pair of eyes to watch her back.  It wasn’t that any of them thought her incapable, it was simply that she was beginning to seem  _ lost _ .  

 

What had passed between Solas and the Inquisitor was known to the closest of her circle -- her advisors, Dorian, and Varric.  Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, Dorian had asked her permission before filling Bull in.  Cassandra knew the long and the short of it -- she wasn’t big on details and just wanted to know which appendage she should break first.  And, Cole.  It was impossible for her to hide anything from him.  He saw through her as if she were made of glass.  Solas during this time kept mostly to himself -- if he was at Skyhold, he was buried in a book, and if he wasn’t at Skyhold, he was off to himself in the Fade somewhere.  The rest of them were vaguely aware, but largely went about their own concerns.

 

At first, she was angry, and that was reasonable.  Beyond the initial sympathies and lamentations, everyone knew to just get out of the way.  A storm mage in a rage is capable of unleashing a tempest, and  _ none _ of them wanted to be caught in that.  Only Dorian dared to get close during those days and even he did so with the utmost caution.  But, there is only so long a cyclone can survive its own destructive forces before it burns itself out.  Much in the same fashion, her rage eventually became unsustainable, and like a rift, it collapsed in on itself.  By increments, she became despondent, all but stopped eating or sleeping, and turned in on herself.  Never once did any of them see her cry.

 

In turn, they all had expressed their concern only to be blithely turned aside after being thanked for their troubles.  Even Solas had attempted to reason with her, but she had sharpened her tongue for him.  She effortlessly turned all of his words back on him, and their assault was brutal and punishing.  When it became evident that he was causing more harm than good, he bowed out rather than continue to exacerbate the situation.  That’s when she began her nightly excursions.  Even the most trifling report of trouble or disturbances warranted her personal attention, and she eschewed any offer of assistance.  Even when she came back wounded, she disdained the healer’s touch for her own remedies, seeming to prefer to suffer the prolonged pain of natural healing.

 

At times, the severity of her wounds were troubling, and she offered little in the way of explanation.  A lapse in concentration, she might say, or simple miscalculation of her opponent’s ability.  Eventually, they agreed that they should attempt to covertly keep closer tabs on her, but she was becoming more and more adept at losing them in the darkness.  It didn’t help that she had commissioned a new suit of armor for her adventures, trading in the loose drape of the green leather robes she had preferred for a set of ebon-dyed silverite brigandine over chain.  With her cowl drawn to hide her brilliant white hair, she blended into the shadows like one of their own and was as silent on her feet as the specter of a sigh.

 

* * *

 

It had taken more effort than usual to lose Bull, but when she was certain he was no longer shadowing her every step, she made her way to her target.  There had been reports of a resurgence of Red Templar activity in the Emerald Graves.   _ Like blighted rodents _ , she mused as she sat perched beneath an outcropping of rocks set high off the road.  The vantage point gave her the benefit of observational range while providing adequate cover.  In her crouched position, she braced an arm against her knee, while her free hand rested fingertips on the rock underfoot to steady her.  She had been watching a crimson spark against the horizon, and it began to grow, splintering off into several separate motes of light as it drew nearer.  

 

One would think glowing red would be a detriment to secretive travel at night, but the templars seemed oblivious to that logic.  She was willing to forgive the folly in their decision-making as it made her job that much simpler.  In a line along the winding path, each figure grew more distinct, and she counted seven separate individuals.  There also seemed to be a load of raw red lyrium in tow.  It had been so long since the Inquisition had cleared the last of the templars from the Graves that perhaps it had given them a false sense of security.  They might have imagined that attentions would be elsewhere.   _ No matter _ , she thought.  Or, at least it wouldn’t matter for much longer.

 

Across their path, she laid down a static cage trap and slowly made her way behind its tripline.  With any luck, the bulk of their number would find themselves within the barrier, and she could pick off those that scattered one by one from behind.  As she dropped from the crown of boulders, her feet were the softest whisper of leather on the grass.  She sat poised in a crouch, waiting, waiting, wound as tightly as a spring as she balanced on the balls of her feet.  From the harness on her back, she took her staff in hand, gripped at mid-length, and readied herself. 

 

This was what she came for, this feeling.  It was like diving from a steep cliff and into a pool of water.  Apprehension and excitement roiled in her belly, her heartbeat quickened, and before she ever moved, anticipation stole her breath.  The world narrowed in these few precious moments, shrinking her breadth of thought to a single sharp edge.  There was no room left for heartache or grief, no allowance for insecurities or doubt.  No time to feel shattered on the inside, with just the membrane of her skin tenuously holding the shards in place.  It all fell away, and in those few moments, she wasn’t broken.

 

When the first templar stepped on the cords of magic she had woven across the road, the scent of ozone filled the air and static crackled.  Like threads on an invisible loom, tendrils of electricity met and meshed as they rose up to form the walls of the cage.  She could smell the metallic twang of blood and the acrid notes of charred flesh as the rising barrier sheared through the first templar, depriving him of a leg.  His screams were ragged as he fell, taking two of his comrades with him.  That left her with four outside the cage.  They splintered off as she expected, and taking a deep breath, she strode from the shadows. 

 

Wisps of white hot energy spilled from the corners of her eyes as she chanted an incantation, and the remaining templars turned as one when they heard her.  They charged, and she waited.  When they were  _ just _ close enough, her eyes flared a brilliant violet, and she slammed her staff into the ground.  Lightning crawled outward and collided with the templar at the head of the pack, and he was thrown violently through the air.  From his body, the energy forked, splintering into jagged barbs that pierced through the men immediately to his right and left.  The electricity was conveyed to their skin through the metal of their armor, drawn by their swords, which acted like lightning rods in a thunderstorm.  With no further fanfare, they dropped like sacks of rocks.

 

The last templar still on his feet outside the cage howled with fury, and the lyrium protruding from his skin flared violently as he rushed her, sword raised overhead.  She met the blade with her staff, parrying the attack with some effort, then using the momentum to spin away from him.  Even as she pulled an empty hilt from her belt, threads of magic spiralled down her arm and through the cold metal, materializing a blade crafted of her will alone.  When the templar brought his blade to bear again, she met it with her own.  The hum of the magic was palpable as the swords slid against one another until the hilts locked, and she was staring down the lyrium-crazed man over the V of their swords.  

 

For certain, her strength alone was no match for his, but she drew from the well of her power, channeling it through her body and into her blade.  A growl of effort left her from behind clenched teeth as her boots dug into the ground, and inch by inch, she began to push him back.  His voice was a snarl as waves of invisible heat distorted the air around him, and the lyrium in his skin pulsed with radiance.  He used the additional leverage of his height to gradually force the cross of their swords lower between them, and when she was sufficiently off balance, he threw all of his weight behind a punch that connected with the full measure of its force.

 

A coppery tang filled her mouth and her vision blurred as she staggered backward, losing her grip on her staff and barely managing to cling to her sword.  The pain in her jaw and cheek was white hot, and she reveled as it washed over and through her in waves.  Pain could be like a salve -- applied properly, it could be a balm to the deepest of wounds.  She was only distantly aware of a tickling sensation on her neck as blood wept from the corner of her mouth and the tear the templar’s gauntlet had left in her cheek.  All of her attention was invested in willing her eyes to focus as she stretched out a hand toward the templar.  The refrain of a spell spilled from her lips, and just as ripples of force began to emanate from her, she heard a high-pitched whistle that only preceded by seconds the arrow that ripped into her right thigh.  She cried out, but all the breath left her when she felt another blow to the back of her left shoulder.  The second impact upset her balance, causing her body to cant to one side even as it pitched her forward and onto the templar’s awaiting blade.

 

Time slowed to an impossible crawl as she felt the recoil of energy from her sword snap back into her arm, and her face came within inches of the templar’s.  Her gaze panned down, and it took her a while to make sense of what she saw.  The tip of an arrow was protruding from just beneath her collarbone on the left, and the templar’s sword was buried halfway into her right side.  It was a passing thought that the only thing that kept his strike from being fatal was the fact that the arrow’s impact caused her body to turn slightly.  The red glow of the lyrium imbedded in the templar’s armor throbbed and fell menacingly across his features, distorting them, as he gripped her shoulder and drove his sword hilt-deep in her flesh.

 

Before her mind’s eyes, regrets glittered like so many pieces of shattered glass, tiny mirrors that threw back at her all she was leaving undone.  --  Though sensation had left her fingertips, she pawed at the templar’s armor, vainly trying to find a handhold as she felt her legs trembling beneath her.  Instead, it was his steadying hand on her shoulder that guided her to her knees as he let gravity pull her off his blade.  --  Bits and pieces of memories floated at the edges of her mind.  Her clan and the forests she’d run as a child.  Becoming the Keeper’s First.  The Conclave.  Sparring practice with Cassandra.  Chess with Dorian.  Solas’s lips on her bare skin.  Though she looked unerringly into the templar’s face, it wasn’t him she saw.  Shaking with effort, she raised a hand as if to touch his face, but he roughly caught her wrist.  “I-,” she whispered, another trail of blood flowing anew from the corner of her mouth.  “I wish I could hate you,” she managed at last as her eyes grew unfocused and her chin dipped to her chest.

 

* * *

 

Though time for Niyera had seemed to stand still, around her, it simply wound onward as time tended to do.  Only one templar within her cage was yet alive, and he watched the scene unfold.  She’d taken more of them down than they had anticipated, but it mattered little as he saw the first arrow strike her.  The dregs of the dwarven Carta she’d attempted to dismantle were all too happy to lend their assistance to the templars and their deliciously twisted plan, and it was their arrows that flew out of the darkness.  Expectantly, he waited for the walls of his cage to fall, as he knew they eventually would, but a gurgling noise drew his attention to the nearby crown of boulders.  It would have been impossible to miss the mountain of a Qunari that he found there, fist crushing the throat of a Carta bowman.  Though, by then, the second arrow had hit the Inquisitor, driving her onto his comrade’s blade.  It was far too late now to stop what had begun.

 

As the severity of her blood loss grew more dire, the magic stabilizing the static cage’s walls ebbed away, and the templar was finally free.  He hobbled over to where the Inquisitor was knelt, passing a glance to the raging Qunari only yards away.  He was still engaged in neutralizing the Carta as their numbers drew from the shadows and set upon him.  As the templar neared his objective, he stumbled, fell, slid on his knees, and sidled up to her from behind.  “No, no,” the other templar said, slapping the elf’s cheek several times briskly.  “Not just yet, Inquisitor.  Stay with us,” he finished, and though she seemed largely unconscious, her head canted upward.  From his pouch, he withdrew a small vial, and the blinking of her eyes was like the flutter of hummingbird wings as he waved it in front of her.  The liquid within the vessel glowed with the same angry red that grew from the templar’s armor and lit his eyes from within.

 

Her eyes seemed to follow the vial as he waggled it in her field of vision a moment longer, but they never quite seemed to latch on.  With a jerk of his chin, the bearer of the vial glanced at the templar at the Inquisitor’s back and spat, “Hold her.”  Heavy hands fell on her upper arms, pulling back, straining the wound in her shoulder and her side as he bent her body back.  A delirious groan was all she uttered as her head lolled to one side before a painfully tight grip on her chin pulled her face back to meet the templar’s gaze.  He wanted to look into her eyes for this and shook her chin just enough to summon a hint of focus back to her eyes.  Only when he had her attention did he shove the glowing vial of concentrated red lyrium into the rend in her side.  The fire that erupted along her nerves pulled from the dryness of her throat what might have been a scream had she the energy, and he leaned forward to seethe harshly against her cheek.  “The Elder One sends his regards,” the man’s words had no sooner died on his lips than he drove a gauntleted fist into her side, shattering the vial inside her against her ribs.

 

Pain exploded in the back of her eyes like a shower of white hot sparks, and the surge of adrenaline revived her voice.  She screamed raggedly, and the pain that rippled through her lasted for only a heartbeat, maybe two, before an unspeakable agony took its place.  Scarlet torment painted itself across the canvas of her mind, filling her head with a thousand raucous whispers and searing flame across every nerve and sinew.  Her eyes snapped open, pupils so swollen they swallowed the green of the irises.  Violent spasms wracked her body, and the templar restraining her arms was no longer able to control her.  Her arms now free, hands that had been useless earlier finally found purchase on the templar across from her.  Her grip was iron, and he struggled against her hold to no avail.  The man at her back rose to flee, but when he turned, he found only the terrible edge of Bull’s axe as it cleaved into his face.  

 

Veins of crimson rose through the whites of her eyes, luminescing, and misty red webs of energy slithered down her arms.  The agony building at her core was a riot, loud and violent.  It choked off every coherent thought she had and wriggled itself into her deepest reaches until there was nothing left but the torment and its insistent urges.  --  Within her body, the taint of the red lyrium clashed violently with the magic of her mark, and when the energy in her hand crackled to life, it was scarlet.  All at once, she felt everything and nothing.  She teetered on a knife’s edge as the last bits of consciousness that were her own fought the rising tide.  But, in the end, she wasn’t strong enough, and the two forces competing for dominance within her coalesced with all the fury of a firestorm.  The resulting explosion of force blew outward, throwing Bull and the templar backward through the air.  When the last of the energies snapped back into her body, she was left a writhing mess of raw nerves and guttural screams.  

 

* * *

Krem had fallen asleep in a chair by the fire, which was little more now than a heap of smoldering embers on the grate.  Arms folded, head drooping, his legs stretched out with his feet propped on a stool, and he snored softly every few minutes.  It was peaceful and still in the hall, but that soon changed.  The tremendous doors of the hall didn’t swing so much as they crashed open with such force that they slammed back against the walls.  Ever the soldier, Krem was on his feet and had his sheathed sword in hand before his chair, tipped over in his haste, hit the floor.  Quickly blinking the sleep from his eyes, he found Bull with the Inquisitor in his arms.  Krem only knew it was her because of the glowing of her mark, but even that seemed slightly foreign, a little off-color somehow.

 

The slender elf thrashed in Bull’s arms, erratic and tortured, and her voice was tinged with an odd thrumming as she keened.  The sound shook Krem to his marrow.  Niyera’s white hair was stained red in splotches, the braid against her scalp unraveling, and her normally green eyes were stained with a crimson sheen.  Eyes wild and body contorted, her head tipped back, and she met Krem’s gaze for a split second.  That was more than enough for his heart to skip a beat.  Blood coated Bull’s forearms, running in rivulets to his elbows, where it collected and dripped.  The effort it was taking the Qunari to maintain his hold on the Inquisitor spoke volumes about the gravity of the situation.

 

Cassandra appeared from behind Bull as she trotted ahead in the direction of the Inquisitor’s quarters.  “Get Dorian!  NOW!” she barked, and her voice shook Krem from his reverie.  He all but stumbled over himself as he took off for the stairs.  With Varric and the surgeon in tow, Bull shouldered through the door to Niyera’s quarters as Cassandra held it open.  The elf’s guttural screams echoed through the hall, but were quickly muffled behind the door as it fell shut behind them.

 

* * *

 

The crash of the hall doors had woken him, and the heavy stomp of boots on the stairway that encircled his chamber only served to annoy him.  “ _ Why is there never any peace here _ ?” Solas wondered to himself as he pushed up from his rest, but only briefly as a savage scream split the air. Grey-blue eyes widened a fraction, and he was suddenly on his feet and at the door.  He arrived in time to see Dorian and Krem sprinting into the Inquisitor’s chambers, and he snagged a harried healer as he passed, arms laden with salves and bandages.  “You.  What’s going on?  What has happened?”  When the healer only stammered, Solas gripped the man’s arm tighter and shook him once.  “Speak.”

 

Pulling on his arm all the while, the healer hastily offered, “The Inquisitor.  She-, I-I don’t know.  I must go!”  Solas’s grip went slack at the words, and the healer peeled away in a rush.  A shudder ran through the elf’s body, the equivalent reaction to nails on a chalkboard.  Every thought fled his mind, a fist clenched in his stomach, and his skin turned to ice, while heat seemed to blossom in his chest.  He’d been managing to maintain a reasonably calm outward-facing demeanor in the aftermath of Crestwood, with such skill in fact that some had accused him of being made of stone.  Perhaps in some ways, he was.  He’d spent many years, ages, distancing himself from his feelings.  Shutting things out and off, locking them away.  At this moment, however, he felt very much so wrought of mere flesh and bone.

 

His feet had numbly carried him across the width and length of the hall, and as he lifted a hand to reach for her door, it opened.  Cullen emerged, forcing Solas to retreat a step, as the commander closed the door behind him.  The men locked eyes when the larger gave no indication that he intended to step aside.  “You need to allow me to pass, Commander,” Solas uttered, his voice quiet though strained with urgency.  With a shake of his head, the former templar stood his ground and laid a firm hand against the elf’s chest as he attempted to advance.  “No, that is what  _ you _ need,” Cullen returned brusquely as his arms folded across his chest.

 

“I can help,” Solas reasoned, “if I can just see her...know what has happened…”  There was a hardness in Cullen’s eyes that never wavered, and while it might have given others pause, Solas remained unphased.  “She has enough help.  And as to what happened,” the commander sighed as his arms unwound and he massaged the back of his neck with one hand.  “All I can say for certain right now is that she ran afoul of some Red Templars and-,” Cullen began to explain, but his words were lost as an inhuman scream reverberated through the stairwell behind the door.  Both men tensed in the wake of the sound, but Solas’s jaw set, making a tiny muscle in his cheek jump fitfully.  Taking advantage of the commander’s momentary distraction, the mage murmured the words of a spell as he concentrated, and his body shed its skin in favor of an incorporeal form.  The former templar  _ felt _ the magic crawl across his skin but a moment before Solas fade stepped through both him  **and** the door.  When Solas rematerialized on the other side, he mounted the stairs in a series of long strides.  Though he abstractly knew Cullen was following close behind, all he could hear were Niyera’s cries of pain.

 

“Inquisitor!” Solas called, bursting through the door of her chamber and rounding the top of the stairs, though the scene that unfolded before him brought him to a stumbling halt.  Discarded and staining the carpet were a pair of broken arrow shafts dark with congealing blood and a trail of crimson-stained cloths that led his eyes to her bed.  There, he found the surgeon on one side and Varric on the other, each bearing down to prevent the Inquisitor’s shoulders from lifting off the bed.  Bull was bent over the footboard, a hand below each of her knees as he laid in with the bulk of his weight to keep her legs still.  There was...so much blood.  Her back bowed away from the bed unnaturally as she struggled against those that restrained her, and she was entirely unresponsive to Solas’s call. 

 

Dorian stood over the bed, working furiously with Cassandra, and it took him several moments to notice that Solas had even entered the room.  The Tevinter met the elf’s eyes and found a mixture of dismay and horror there before his gaze slipped over Solas’s shoulder.  “Cullen!  Get him  _ the fuck _ out of here,” Dorian’s voice was uncommonly hard, stressed, as the commander clamped down a hand on one of the mage’s shoulders.  Solas seemed not to have realized Cullen had caught up to him until the man laid hands on him, and the reaction he had was unexpectedly violent.  Snatching his shoulder away before Cullen could find solid purchase, he drove an elbow up and back, catching the commander in the face.  

 

Though she hadn’t responded to her title, Solas called out to her again, her name, and in response, her eyes flared, crimson tendrils leaking from the corners.  The reaction preceded by only moments a renewal of violent thrashing, and her body bowed away from the bed in what seemed an impossible manner as she howled.  “Any time now would be good,  _ Commander _ ,” Dorian shouted to be heard over the screaming, having to add his own efforts to the struggle to keep her still with his hands on her hips.  A snarl bent former templar’s upper lip, and he paused only to spit out a mouthful of blood before he lunged at Solas.  Cullen snagged the elf’s tunic and yanked him backward, and the two grappled for control before the commander got the upper hand.  

 

It was no small measure of effort to wrestle Solas down the stairs, and he and Cullen all but fell through the door as the commander hauled him out.  The elf hit the stone floor hard on his shoulder, but quickly climbed to his feet, body poised with coiled tension.  Before Solas could move, Cullen made an exasperated noise and gestured threateningly.  “Is now  _ really _ the time?  Have you  _ not _ done enough already?”  The hardened look of determination in Solas’s eyes faltered a moment, the hint of a question passing like a cloud over the face of the sun.  The incredulous noise that fell from Cullen’s lips was punctuated as he threw his hands into the air, then jabbed a finger at Solas in accusation.  “ _ You’re _ the reason she was out there to begin with.  For a fortnight!  Maker, did you  _ really _ not know?”

 

Cullen’s words hit him like a battering ram in center of his chest and stole his breath.  “No,” Solas forced out, pushing his eyes past the former templar to the door behind him.  “She didn’t...we haven’t,” he tripped over the words.  They hadn’t spoken much since Crestwood.  In the first days, Niyera had been angry, so angry, and she avoided him as much as possible.  He thought it better to keep himself out of her line of sight, that perhaps it would lessen the burden.  He had no idea.  Cullen took a step forward, the fury in his voice barely restrained as he spoke.  “Get out of my sight before I have you thrown out of Skyhold entirely.”

 

Though his lips were perched on the cusp of protesting, Solas’s mouth snapped shut, and he nodded mutely.  He straightened himself and his tunic, donning his facade of composure like a shroud, and turned to begin to walk away.  The elf paused and, without turning around, quietly said, “Please take care of her, Commander.”  Cullen’s gaze bore holes into the mage’s back, and he simply replied, “We will.”  --  Solas didn’t dare take a breath until he’d exited the hall and stood atop the ramparts at the far corner of the courtyard, out of sight and out of hearing range.  Once there, his breath left him in a ragged growl of frustration that trailed off into a sob of grief as the weight of his heart drove him to his knees.  His body curled upon itself, with his forearms on his thighs and the curve of his back pressing his chin into his chest.  This was his fault.  He had done this.  In his selfish endeavor to disentangle himself and preserve his commitment to his ultimate goal, he was destroying the first thing he had truly loved in ages beyond memory.  The press of the heels of his hands against his eyes did nothing to prevent the hot tears that coursed down his cheeks.  For the first time in what seemed like forever, he wept.  Ever such was the downfall of Pride.

 

* * *

 

“But you  _ can _ do it.  You have the ability.  Now is no time to be bashful, Seeker,” Dorian said, his voice perhaps as serious as it had ever been.  The sleeves of his fine silk shirt were rolled to his forearms, stained with blood, and his hands dripped crimson.  Cassandra pressed her fingers deeply into her brow, massaging and leaving a smear of red as she looked back to Dorian.  “Of course I  _ can _ , but it may  _ kill _ her, Dorian,” the Seeker’s voice grew in pitch as she spoke, the strain in her voice evident.  An hour had passed as they attempted to find a way to stop the Inquisitor’s convulsions, which kept them from tending to her wounds with any measure of success.  She had screamed so loudly for so long, that her raw throat and vocal cords were no longer able to physically produce sound.  That, at least, was a blessing.  Bull’s report seemed to indicate that the templar had delivered an infusion of red lyrium concentrate directly into her bloodstream.  Even handling her was a risk to them all at this point -- all except Cassandra, who also happened to possess the ability to sear lyrium from blood.  

 

Dorian’s tone of voice took on a particularly harsh, accusatory edge as he stared at Cassandra and made a flippant gesture.  “Oh, yes, it certainly  _ may _ .  But you know what  _ definitely _ will?  NOT DOING IT AT ALL!”  The Tevinter and Seeker seemed about to come to blows, when Cullen’s voice boomed through the room:  “ENOUGH!”  Pressing a cloth against the gash in Niyera’s side with both hands, the former templar glared up at the pair.  “We don’t have time for this.  How much longer do you  _ really _ think she can last?”  There was only a fraction of a second’s hesitation in his words.  “Do it, Cassandra.”  Dorian took a step back from the bed to give her room, and the Seeker drew in a deep, steadying breath, murmuring, “Maker guide me,” as she pressed a hand into the center of the Inquisitor’s chest.

 

* * *

There was only an hour or so before dawn would break, and the birds had begun to trill from their nesting.  The stars yet clung to their place in the velvet dark of the sky, while the first pink of morning sun warmed the horizon.  Solas had spent the remains of the night on the ramparts, alternately weeping, pacing, and swearing as he beat the fists of his helpless hands against his thighs.  Surely there were bruises there now, but he couldn’t be moved to care.  A sound from the courtyard below called for his attention, and when he looked down, he saw Varric trudging down the steps from the hall.  A lump rose painfully in his throat, and his feet carried him to the stairs without thought.  

 

He needed to know...he needed to see her.  When he entered the hall, it was eerily quiet.  The fire in the hearth had hours ago burned out, and no one had relit it.  Long strides carried him to the outer door of her quarters, which he found unguarded, so he stepped through without hesitation.  He had just rounded the corner to mount the stairs when he met Cassandra, who was wiping at her hands with a blood-stained towel.  Solas’s grey-blue eyes searched her face for any hint of an answer before he questioned, “Seeker?”  Cassandra’s features were drawn with exhaustion, and the gaze that she leveled on the elf made his heart thud painfully in his chest.  The time before she answered seemed torturously long, but eventually Cassandra nodded, saying simply, “She lives.”  

 

Solas’s breath left him in a rush, and he placed a hand on the banister to steady himself.  He heard his voice shake when he asked, “May I see her?  Please?”  Cassandra’s eyes softened, and she made her way down the last few steps and over to him.  A hand rested momentarily on his shoulder, and she said, “Of course, but know that she has not woken in hours.  Everything we’ve done...after...she never woke.”  Cassandra rubbed at her shoulder fitfully, uttering, “I’m sorry,” quietly before departing.  Trepidation carried his feet up the stairs softly, through the door, and then up into her chambers.  Gone from the night before were the remnants of arrows, the soiled cloths and bandages, the blood.  It looked as if linens were fresh and that someone had washed the blood from her hair.  She was...so pale.

 

The only other person there was Dorian, and he was asleep in the chair behind her desk, feet propped and resting on the leather blotter and his arms crossed over his chest.  Solas’s steps were little more than whispers as he approached Niyera’s bedside, and as he neared, he took careful appraisal of her form.  Stitches closed a deep gash in her cheek as well as an angry wound just beneath her collarbone on the left side.  Other scrapes and cuts marred the visible skin of her shoulders and arms, though anything else was hidden beneath a breast-band and the covers that were drawn just below.  Silently, he took to his knees beside the bed and reached out to brush his fingertips against her cheek.

 

His breath hitched in surprise when Cole’s hand caught his wrist before he could touch her.  “She says no,” the spirit-made-flesh offered, gently forcing Solas’s hand back.  “That you’re here...it makes her happy, and sad, and angry.  And the pain,” Cole says, his voice growing distant as if listening to a voice only he can hear.  The sigh that parted Solas’s lips was like a weight that bowed his head until it rested against the soft cotton sheets.  “Ir abelas, vhenan,” he breathed, not even a whisper, as he folded his fist around the loose edge of the sheet.  “Ar isalan na,” he said as he lifted his eyes to gaze at Niyera’s ashen face.  “She...doesn’t believe you,” Cole said hesitantly as he shifted his weight to lean toward the Inquisitor.  “...and now she’s gone,” he leaned back, folding his arms as he sighed.  

 

At Cole’s words, Solas’s face lifted, and he stared at Niyera for several moments, watching the easy rise and fall of her chest that indicated she still drew breath.  Confusion settled over the elf as he glanced up at Cole, “What do you mean when you say she is gone?”  Beneath the drooping brim of his hat, Cole shrugged one shoulder as his head shook.  “She’s lost, and she doesn’t know how to find her way back.  The red lyrium...it sang a song in her blood and tried to carry her away,” he paused as he glanced back toward the stairs.  “But, then Cassandra burnt up the song, the notes like ashes caught in a whirlwind.  And now...now, no breadcrumbs lead home.”  

 

Solas got to his feet, careful not to disturb the bed.  “And yet you hear her?  How?”  The spirit’s thin shoulder rose again, “Sometimes she is closer than others.  Almost here, but not.  Like seeing the surface of the water from beneath, but not being able to break through.  Sometimes she thinks she is drowning.”  Cole’s head tipped back just enough so that he could meet Solas’s eyes, and then he whispered, almost conspiratorially, “Sometimes...she thinks it would be better if she drowned, but I wish she wouldn’t.”  Solas settled a hand on Cole’s shoulder, a sudden gravity filling his voice, “I need you to tell me everything, Cole.  What you can see...where...I need to know.  Can you show me?”  The spirit-made-flesh nodded, tugging at Solas’s arm as he turned for the stairs.  “But somewhere else.  The quiet here scares me.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Solas ventures into the Fade to try to pull Niyera back from oblivion.

Even when Cole had finished describing the flashes of scenery he’d glimpsed in the Inquisitor’s fevered mind, Solas didn’t immediately recognize the setting, but he had a pretty good idea of where to start.  “Thank you, Cole,” the elf said grimly as he stood and turned to walk away, but Cole caught the sleeve of his tunic.  “Every sorrow begins as joy,” the spirit offered, and Solas could only nod.  --  Within one of the many unused chambers in Skyhold, Solas reclined on a cot he’d made plush with pillows and furs.  As he settled, he tipped his head back, trying to tug the tension from the muscles between his shoulder blades.  When at last he was as comfortable as he could expect to be, he drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.  His mind drifted through thoughts of her -- the smell of her hair, the sound of her breath when she slept -- and he let sleep claim him.

 

* * *

 

Still asleep, Dorian shifted in the chair behind the Inquisitor’s desk, unconsciously scratching at a tickle on his cheek.  His chin listlessly dipped to his chest, and he let out a quiet snort of a snore.  Another tickle roused him enough that he scratched at his cheek again, a bit more aggressively, his hand lazily swatting at the air before it fell back into his lap.  He hadn’t quite sunk back into the depths of sleep before the tickling caused him to stir again, and this time, it wasn’t a scratch but a slap he laid against his cheek.  “ _ Vishante kaffas _ !”  The Tevinter woke with an abrupt start, nearly tipping over backward in the chair before he regained his balance and his boots fell heavily on the floor.  

 

Blearily, he looked up to see Bull sitting on the corner of the desk, a smug grin on his face, and a small, downy feather in his hand.  Dorian leveled a disapproving finger at the Qunari as he scowled, but was met only with a rough chuckle.  “You were snoring,” Bull said, and a look of slanderous dismay passed across the Tevinter’s features as he laid a hand on his chest.  “What a vicious lie.  I was not,” Dorian said with a scoff that softened as Bull placed a fingertip beneath his chin.  “But, it was a cute snore.  Like a baby snore.”  The mage’s mouth pursed defiantly as Bull started to lean down, and Dorian muttered, “I hate you,” and the Qunari simply replied, “Me you, too,” before placing a kiss on his lips.

 

When Bull leaned back, Dorian exhaled loudly and turned his eyes to gaze across the desk at Niyera.  “Don’t you think you should get some  _ real _ sleep?” the Qunari asked as deposited the feather on the desk and stood.  “No,” the mage said as he scrubbed a hand across his face then propped his chin in his hand.  “I want to be here when she wakes up...so that I can tell her how angry I am... at her...for almost dying... _ before _ I kill her for being so stupid.”  A grunt from Bull drew Dorian’s eyes upward, and he rolled them before saying, “Fine.  I  _ won’t _ kill her, but the rest of it is not negotiable.”  Without another word, the Tevinter rose and crossed on the other side of the desk from Bull to approach the bed.  He sat down on the edge and laid the back of his fingers to Niyera’s forehead then cradled her cheek in his palm.  “She’s still fevered,” concern was evident in his voice as he reached for the cloth in a basin of water on the bedside table.  Wringing it out, he folded it carefully, gently pressing it to each of her cheeks for before laying it across her forehead.  “I am  _ so _ cross with you,” Dorian muttered at the unconscious elf before he took her hand in both of his, gently rubbing his thumbs against her knuckles.

 

* * *

 

When Solas opened his eyes in the Fade, diffuse sunlight fell around him, and he stepped into the grassy clearing.  Before him was the open air atrium that Niyera enjoyed visiting, its white pillars gleaming in the light.  She had spent so much time here that she’d left her imprint on this section of the Fade, and one of the light breezes that always stirred here brought her scent to him.  He breathed deeply, eyes closing so that he could fully savor the power of that singular sense.    She was near; he could  _ feel _ her.  

 

Long strides brought him to the atrium, and he stepped between the pillars.  Discarded on a pile of pillows was a book of Elvhen poetry, the one they had read together, and nearby, a wine goblet rested on its side.  A thin trail of plum-hued wine still dripped from the lip, staining the white stone underfoot with each drop that splattered.  He stepped past it, turning in a half-circle as he moved forward, eyes searching every inch of the atrium.  A crunch beneath his foot stopped him, and looking down, he saw jewel-toned fragments of glass.  His eyes cut upward to discover one of the many stained glass mosaics had fallen away, allowing radiant sunlight to spill in.  

 

Stepping out of the shards, he dipped into an easy crouch, bracing his forearm on his knee as he plucked a sanguine wedge of glass from the pile.  One corner of his mouth drew tight as he tested the weight of the piece and took another thoughtful appraisal of his surroundings.  Around him, her energy thrummed, faint but distinctly her.  Inspecting the glass once more, he turned it just so, and its iridescent surface caught in the sunlight.  The red light it threw back blinded him momentarily, and a dull ache began to pulse somewhere behind his eyes.  He tried to blink away the pain, but it only increased until his fist closed around the shard, shattering it.  

 

The cracking of the glass rang in his ears as he felt the Fade around him shift, like he was the eye at the center of a cyclone.  No longer could he feel the warmth of the sun on his back or smell the sweet currents of jasmine.  The air grew cold and dense, and a scent like hot metal filled his nose.  As the slivers of glass dissolved in his hand and sifted through his fingers like sand, his surroundings solidified and he found himself in the twisted shadow of a familiar place.

 

The stone floor of the atrium was still under his feet, but it was slanted now, forcing him to adjust his stance to keep from sliding off.  He leaned into the pitch of the floor as he drew himself up to stand and let his eyes take in the view.  Everything around him was broken -- the atrium was off-kilter, pillars toppled, roof missing, and the base canted at a severe angle as it was half-buried in a watery mire.

 

Under the surface of the water surrounding him, there was a suffuse crimson glow, and it undulated as if disharmonious currents ran beneath.  Beyond the atrium were scattered a plethora of familiar monuments and land markers -- something distinct from almost every place they'd dreamt together.  With effort, he hiked to the high edge of the atrium’s floor, standing on the peak as he called out, “Where are you, vhenan?  I know you are here.”  There was no answer, but at his back, a templar rose from the waters, its shape drawn in fractals, glowing a misty red.  “Leave.  You are not wanted here,” the apparition intoned, a hint of warning in the unnatural cadence of its voice.

 

* * *

 

It had taken the better part of an hour, but Bull had convinced Dorian to at least nap on the couch.  Far too tall for the seat, he had scooched down until his knees bent over the arm, leaving his legs to dangle, back flat against the seat as he draped an arm over his eyes.  He had fallen asleep within minutes, and the Qunari tucked a fleece spread around him.  Once the mage was settled, Bull took up post at Niyera’s bedside and moistened the cloth again before draping it across her forehead.

 

Though he’d certainly been busy enough carving a line through the Carta in an attempt to get to her, he couldn’t help but appreciate the way she threw herself into the fight.  Careless though it was to go in alone, she had been fearless, unwavering, and that was something he admired.  When she had recovered, however, he’d already made a mental note to help her work on her hand-to-hand techniques.  With proper training, she could be quite formidable indeed, weapon or no.  

 

Bull only turned his attention from his charge when he heard the door to the Inquisitor’s inner chamber open, and he nodded his acknowledgement to Cassandra as she came to the top of the stairs.  Her arms were full of bandages and poultices, and she passed a casual, but mildly bemused glance to Dorian before she whispered, “Has she woken?”  Bull simply shook his head as the Seeker approached, and they sat in silence for several moments, each deep in their own thoughts.  Finally, with a shake of her head, Cassandra said, “I need to attend to her bandages,” as she crossed to the other side of the bed.  Her eyes passed to Bull as she waited expectantly for him to leave, but when he didn’t leave, she cleared her throat.  

 

The Qunari’s brow lowered, and he propped a calloused hand on his knee.  “Seeker, we’ve  _ bathed _ in the same lake together, at the same time.  She’s not bashful, and neither am I.”  Cassandra’s eyes widened just a tad, and she made a slightly frustrated noise as she gestured.  “Fine.  Help me, then.”  Bull nodded, moving to sit on the bed.  When Cassandra drew back the covers, the Qunari lifted the elf easily into his lap, treating her with all the care one might use when handling an infant.  Seated on the other side of the bed, Cassandra propped Niyera’s heel against her thigh and began to unwind her bandage.

 

* * *

 

“I am afraid I cannot leave, not yet,” Solas returned, taking a few steps toward the templar.  The apparition wordlessly drew its sword, poised and waiting.  When the elf made no further advance, it spoke, “You have no choice.”  Solas’s hands splayed, as if indicating he was unarmed, and he took a few more steps, lingering just out of the templar’s reach.  “I believe that I do,” the mage argued, following with, “and I don’t intend to go without that for which I came.”  The templar’s gauntleted hand flexed on the hilt of his sword, his words monotone and wavering with an unnatural thrumming, “There is nothing left for you here.”  And, with no further words, the apparition attacked.

 

Having the advantage of higher ground, Solas nimbly leapt away from the templar’s clumsy attack, landing on his feet in the water outside the atrium with a splash.  An inhuman growl filled the air as the apparition followed after, taking a few broad swipes at the elf with his sword.  Each time, Solas dodged, and the two strode back and forth through the water in this fitful dance.  As they neared the water’s edge, a skeletal crimson hand clawed from the muck and snagged Solas’s ankle, and he pitched over backward, landing on the flat of his back on the bank.  The templar wasted no time as he clamored atop Solas, clapping a gauntleted hand down on the elf’s slender neck.

 

Though Solas raised his hands to grip the fingers that bent around his throat, he wasn’t fighting.  His eyes were riveted to the templar’s face, searching its glowing eyes as he said, “Niyera....  _ Ar lath ma, vhenan. _ ”  A snarling keen echoed from the apparition as it threw down its sword and clamped its free hand on Solas’s throat as well.  “Don't say that,” it seethed harshly.  Tiny sparks of light had begun to wink at the edges of his vision, and yet, the elf barely struggled.  He said again, with somewhat more effort, “ _ Ar lath ma _ .”

 

The templar’s face contorted in rage as it pulled Solas close to sneer at him before slamming him back into the ground.  Fingers of darkness groped at Solas’s mind as he shifted his hands down to grip the templar’s wrists.  When the apparition spoke, the pitch of its voice had changed, rising higher, though it was still distorted when it spat, “ _ Ma harel _ .”  As the templar glared down at him, Solas began to lose his hold on its wrists, but managed to hoarsely whisper, “ _ Ar lath ma.  Nuvenan na amahn. _ ”  Around the elf’s throat, the templar’s hands began to shake, and it was a tremble that coursed up its arms and through its body.  A sharp gasp of a cry left the apparition as its form wavered, rippling from head to toe.  When the illusion had been entirely stripped away, Niyera sat astride Solas’s torso, hands still around his neck as tears coursed down her cheeks.  “ _ Ma harel, _ ” she repeated, no more than a breath, before she shoved him into the ground again and released him.

 

She left him there on the ground, gasping for air, as she turned her back and strode toward the water.  Like a tendril of smoke caught in a whirlwind, her form dispersed and spiraled away.   She rematerialized seated between the outstretched front paws of a massive stone wolf.  Reclined against one of its legs, a long, gauzy robe shrouded her form.  Aside from breast-band and linen loincloth she wore, bandages coiled along her limbs and embraced her torso.  Her hair was loose and long, and with no braid to hold back the locks from the shorn side of her scalp, subtly waved tendrils framed her face.  “Please...just leave, Solas,” she said wearily.

 

* * *

 

The last fingers of late afternoon sun stretched over the mountains, painting streaks of rose gold across the floor in the Inquisitor’s room as it slanted through the glass doors to the balcony.  A fire had been lit, casting off the chill that infused the stones of Skyhold after the fall of night.  Dorian sat on the couch, picking disinterestedly at the dinner he’d failed to finish, and Varric sat behind the desk, bent over curling sheets of parchment.  There was scarcely any sound between them beyond the dry scratch of quill on parchment and the subdued crackling of the wood in the hearth.

 

That made the barely audible murmur from behind Niyera’s closed lips all the more startling.  The mage and the dwarf shared a glance before Dorian popped up and over to her side.  Her eyes remained shut, her skin flushed and clammy, though a thin tremor ran the length of her body.  Behind her lids, her eyes darted back and forth fitfully, and when the Tevinter took her hand in his, her fingers curled in a weak grip.  He huffed a breath and shot the hint of a hopeful smile back at Varric, who returned the expression.

* * *

“You know I cannot, vhenan,” Solas said when he finally found his breath again.  With effort, he came to his feet, a hand massaging at his throat as he looked out across the water at her.  As he waded into the pool, he queried, “Are you waiting for Fen’Harel to take you?”  Her viridian eyes panned up as she lifted a hand to brush at the underside of the stone wolf’s muzzle.  “I wish he would.  Better to be a willing sacrifice in his jaws than a hapless victim in yours.”  Slowly, her eyes fell again to Solas, dark and hardened with pain. 

 

“I do not think you understand what you are saying,” Solas cautioned subtly as he strode steadily closer.  “Do I not?” she began, “Such a wolf as he does not hide; he is not a coward.  He wears his fangs proudly,” her eyes drifted back up to the wolf, fingers still lazily stroking its muzzle as she continued.  “You, however, are more like a jackal, preferring to pick off the stray from the herd while lying under the cover of darkness,” she said.  He made no attempt to hide the effect her words had on him, a certain look of sorrow and regret clouding his grey-blue eyes.  “I have never regarded you as a  _ stray _ .  Nothing so weak could draw and hold my attention as you do.  Your strength -- it is intoxicating and challenging.”  

 

He advanced another step, eyeing the statue over her head.  “And the Dread Wolf...yes, that is how he once was.  When he was young and brash, hot-headed,” the words drifted into silence on the edge of a sigh.  “But things change.  He changed.”  She took in the length of Solas in silence, a thoughtful regard that knitted her brow slightly as she leaned forward.  “What would you know of the Dread Wolf and his nature?”  Solas’s head canted to one side, and the weight of the jawbone talisman he wore seemed all the heavier suddenly.  “More than you might imagine,” he said, words chased with a weight she couldn’t make sense of.  Before she could question further, he spoke again, “And, what if this is where he has brought you?”  Solas questioned as he gestured at their surroundings, a broken nightmare of a place.  The words that fell from her lips were heavy with blame backed by a betrayal that forced her gaze to soften with sorrow, “No, Solas.  It was you who brought me here.  Make no mistake.”  He winced visibly, his voice trapped low in his throat, “Vhenan…”

 

* * *

 

Though she’d yet to open her eyes, Niyera had begun to stir:  a shift of her leg, the turn of her head, small sounds that filtered through closed lips.  Dorian had wondered aloud if her fever might finally be breaking and kept the damp cloth cool on her forehead with frequent changing.  The surgeon was summoned, and after examining the elf, she confirmed Dorian’s suspicions.  She advised an herbal compress to help draw the last of the fever and quickly left to retrieve it.  

 

When she returned, Cassandra and Bull were in tow.  At his insistence, the surgeon left the compress with Dorian, and he administered the treatment, while the rest looked on with bated expectation.  Another hour passed before her eyes fluttered, and something of a pained breath fell across her lips.  It was followed shortly by a hoarsely whispered name:  Solas.  “Varric,” Dorian called as he tossed a glance over his shoulder, but the dwarf was already on his feet.  “I’m on it,” he said before disappearing down the stairs.

 

* * *

The forward tilt of her head made her hair slip over her shoulders, soft waves framing hard words.  “Do not call me that, Solas.  You brought me to my most vulnerable and chose that moment to break me.  You no longer have the right.”  Her every word was a barb, sharpened just for him, and each pierced him to his core.  His head bowed to her, eyes closed against the truth of her words.  It hadn’t been his intention to dissolve their relationship that night, quite the opposite.  He wanted her to know how he felt, he wanted to show her how truly remarkable, how truly beautiful she was -- more than her physical appearance, but also her spirit, her mind, her heart.  The look in her eye after he’d removed the vallaslin, the tenderness of her kiss so sweet as if she would dissolve into him.  It struck him all at once, the realization that the love she bore for him was as deep as that he felt for her.  He had never expected that, and it terrified him.

 

Solas’s breath left him in a labored sigh as water rippled around his legs, the scarlet tendrils beneath the surface coiling around his calves, then slipping away as if unable to maintain their hold.  “You...made me forget myself, gave me hope for a future I had never envisioned being a part of.  For a time, I imagined that the world could be different, that  _ I _ could be different,” he seemed to struggle with his words, and they trailed off.  He took a deep, clarifying breath before speaking, “I was so unprepared for you, Niyera.  Unprepared for how you would make me feel, what you would make me feel…”

 

“Tell me exactly what is it I’ve made you feel,” her words were all at once a plea and an accusation, forceful yet trembling.  “Whole,” he said softly, “alive.  It was never my intention,” he began as he tilted his face upward, closing the last measure of distance between them, “to let it go so far.  I never imagined that I would...could love you so much as I do...or that you would return that love.”  Her expression was difficult to read as she lifted her body from where she’d reclined, drawing one leg beneath her as the other draped over the edge of the statue’s base.  “There are duties I have sworn, things in the past I have done that I must make right,” he ventured to rest a hand beside her leg on the cold stone of the statue, “and I cannot change that.  I had only hoped to save you further pain when my inevitable departure occurred.”  He was so close.  He wanted to touch her, but resisted the urge, bowing his head against the compulsion.  

 

“You told me once, Solas, that you could not change, that there would be things you could not explain,” she said slowly, quietly, the volume of her voice lowering with every word.  “What did I tell you then?”  Without lifting his head, he confessed, “That...I was a risk you were willing to take.”  Hesitantly, like it was the first time, she traced her fingertips against the curve of his cheek as she said, “And, you still are.”  He could no longer help himself as he ran both hands lightly up the back of her calf, cupping it, as he pressed his forehead against her knee.  Her skin was warm when all else around them was cold.  “Then, return with me.  Let me, in however small a measure you might allow, try to repair what I have broken.”  Her lingering touch on his cheek lifted his face until their eyes met, and her expression stopped his breath in his chest.  Wordlessly, she reached out for his shoulders, and he slid his hands about her waist, lifting her from the statue’s ledge.  Her arms draped around his neck as he carefully set her on her feet, and several moments passed as they simply took each other in.  Eventually, he plucked her hand from his shoulder, pressed his lips to the backs of her fingers, then meshed her hand with his.  There was no need for words as they walked through and out of the Fade hand in hand.

 

* * *

Solas awoke slowly, his gradual withdrawal from the Fade leaving him more weary than usual, and he roughed a hand over his scalp.  A sense of relief snugged tight in the center of his chest, and a deep exhalation released some of the tension that had built in his muscles.  The rest, he imagined, would depart once he saw her and could be certain she had followed him out.  Joints in his legs and back protested loudly when he stood, but he didn’t spare a moment to stretch before he was out the door and on his way to her chambers.

 

When he came through the doors to the main hall, small groups had gathered here and there, clustered around brightly burning braziers and near the fire.  The air was alive with whispers, and a faint current of nervous energy hung throughout.  He was halfway down the length of the hall when he heard Varric’s voice call out from behind, “Chuckles!  There you are!  I’ve been looking everywhere.”  Solas paused but a moment to let the dwarf catch up, who then quickly said, “She’s asking for you.”  He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, but the smile that bent his lips was answer enough.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Niyera wakes up. Cullen struggles with his lyrium withdrawal and succumbs to his delusions. It doesn't end well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had trouble figuring out how to format this in a way that would make sense. The exchange between Niyera and Cullen alone in her chambers is told from her point of view, then his. As Cullen is in the middle of some pretty deep delusions/hallucinations because of his withdrawal symptoms, there's an important divide between her perspective of events and his. I'll separate that section between double page breaks, and Niyera's POV will be in regular text, while Cullen's will be in italics. I'll also separate each pair of POVs with ~~~~.
> 
> Tagged for sex, non-con, hurt, comfort.

Perched on the edge of the couch in Niyera’s room, Cullen’s hands were braced on his thighs, and his knees bounced ceaselessly with nervous energy.  He hadn’t gotten nearly enough sleep since Bull had brought the Inquisitor back, broken and bleeding, and the burden of worry coupled with the stress was wearing on him.  On a good day, the allure of the lyrium was tempting, but since that night, it was approaching irresistible.  

 

“Commander?” the voice of the surgeon pierced the reverie he’d fallen into, and his knees stilled as he blinked up at the woman.  “I’m sorry.  You were saying?”  A slender brow arched as she repeated herself:  the Inquisitor was still unconscious, but stable despite her fever.  “And, if you like, Commander, I can mix a tincture that will take the edge off of those...jitters,” the surgeon added.  Cullen’s eyes narrowed on the woman, the look of a worn soldier staring spitefully against the glare of the sun.  “That will not be necessary.  You’re dismissed.”  

 

The surgeon nodded curtly before taking her leave, and Cullen was left alone with Niyera.  He came to his feet with the heft of a sigh on his lips and paced to the end of the bed.  His hands braced against the footboard, flexing the muscles across his shoulders to bend his back and was summarily rewarded with a series of cracks that ran along his spine.  He breathed in his relief, and when his gaze settled, he couldn’t help but take notice of the delicacy of Niyera’s features, buried though they were beneath the discoloration of scrapes and healing bruises.

 

Since the first time he’d seen her, he had been struck by her beauty.  With skin like porcelain and hair as white as snow, she looked like a doll you might find in the window of a shop in Orlais.  Viridian eyes were set above high cheekbones, and the graceful line of her jaw mirrored the sweep of her ears from lobe to tapered tip.  Her mouth possessed a gentle curve, and her lips were full and blushed a natural dusky rose.  

 

When he first saw her, he couldn’t have imagined he would come to call her “Inquisitor.”  But, over time, she demonstrated her capability in battle as well as her calm and discerning judgment in the face of adversity.  It was surprising, especially considering her lack of experience with the world outside her clan.  He admired her, without question, and he had found himself drawn to her in a way that didn’t become his post as the commander of her armies.  Until recently, his feelings had been irrelevant as she had given her heart to another.  But, that complication, it seemed, had resolved itself.

 

When he heard the clatter of the latch of the inner chamber door, he leaned away from the bed and planted himself by the glass balcony doors, appearing engaged in a distraction when Dorian emerged from the stairs.  “Commander,” the mage offered in greeting before sitting his things aside on the end of the room’s couch.  “How is she?”  Cullen scrubbed the heel of his hand against the stubble on his jawline and shook his head.  “The same, it seems.  The surgeon believes she is stable, though her fever has not abated.”  

 

Dorian only nodded as he pulled a chair nearer to the head of the bed and sat, leaning to brush a few stray locks of hair from the elf’s face.  The slant of his eyes fell upon Cullen as he said, “I’m sure you’ve things of import that require your attention, Commander.  Please don’t feel obliged to stay.  She’ll be well cared for.”  The former templar folded his tense arms across his chest and managed a stiff nod.  “When the day’s duties are done, I’ll be back to check on her,” Cullen said, making his way to the stairs.  “Certainly, Commander,” were the only words Dorian uttered as Cullen departed.

 

* * *

 

The day passed by him in a blur, an endless parade of drills, orders to sign, diplomats to coddle (at Josephine's insistence), and meetings to arrange.   When he hadn't been actively engaged in field maneuver training, he'd planted one hand firmly on the hilt of his sword and the other on his hip just to hide the trembling of his hands.   By the time the day’s requirements were met and he was back in his office, he was spent with the effort of his charade.  The tremors were starting to travel, and it felt as if the muscles in his forearms were constantly shivering. 

 

He'd just sat down from removing the crushing weight of his armor when there was a harried knock at his door.  While his mind screamed inwardly with frustration, his lips answered as they had become accustomed to, almost without thought: “Enter.”  A breathless scout pushed through the door, not even completely inside before he spoke, “She's coming around, Commander.  I knew you’d-,” the man’s words interrupted as Cullen was on his feet and pushing him aside in his haste out of the door.  

 

By the time his feet were pounding on the last few steps leading into her chamber, he was breathless, though not because of the meager physical exertion.  Leliana and Josephine had beat him there, and a few others stood at her bedside.  Dorian, as ever, sat at her side, holding her hand.  For the first time in days, her eyes were open, and she glanced his way with the weakest of smiles.    _ Thank you, Maker _ , he thought as he tugged in a deep breath.

 

When Cullen approached, Dorian patted Niyera’s hand and rose from the bed to allow the former Templar to sit.  He had to clear his throat before he could speak, but finally said, “It’s good to see you awake, Inquisitor.”  The same hint of a smile hovered on her lips, and her eyes were still struggling to blink away the dregs of unconsciousness.   “Thank you,” she rasped hoarsely, her throat and vocal cords still raw, before her eyes drifted shut and she sank beneath the waves of sleep.  

 

When Cullen shot a concerned glance to the surgeon, she shook her head.  “Don't worry, Commander.  She's only sleeping.  Unconsciousness is rarely restful, and she hasn't been recuperating.  She's been fighting.  Now she can begin the healing process, and that will take sleep...and time”   Settling his attention back on Niyera, Cullen gripped one hand with another, pressing fingers stiffly into his palm as he scrubbed to resist the urge to touch her face.  “Of course,” he murmured.

 

Heavy footfalls echoing up the stairs at his back turned his gaze in that direction, and when Varric appeared, he offered the dwarf a thin smile...a smile that all but disappeared when Solas trailed in behind.  One corner of his upper lip twitched as the elf approached and stood over him.  Cullen made no offer or motion to move, just turned his eyes back to the Inquisitor as he spoke, no small measure of criticism in his voice, “I’m sure she’d have been pleased to see you could be bothered to abandon your studies to stop by, but she’s already drifted back to sleep.”  Ignoring the commander’s tone entirely, Solas approached the head of the bed and bowed to brush his fingertips against her temple.  A strand of hair was tucked behind her ear before he pressed his palm to her forehead, finding her skin cool to the touch.  “It is just as well,” Solas said when he finally spoke, “She needs her rest.  When she wakes again, I will be here to see her.”  

 

The unspoken animosity between the two men didn’t go unnoticed by the others in the room, but Dorian was the only one to address it as he broke the tension none too subtly.  “Well!  Now that we’re done comparing measurements, what’s say we give the Inquisitor some peace and quiet?  Yes?  Good.  Off we go,” he trilled sardonically, making an exaggerated shooing motion.  One by one, Leliana, Josephine, and Varric meandered out of the room, followed shortly after by Bull and the surgeon.  Only then did Cullen rise from his seat on the bed, sparing one final disapproving glance to Solas before he departed wordlessly.  The disgusted noise that fell from Cassandra’s lips echoed what everyone was already thinking, and she passed a nod to both the elf and the Tevinter before she moved down the steps.

 

“Well,” Dorian began with exaggerated cheer as he crossed the room.  “Now that  _ that’s _ done,” his words paused as he came along Solas’s side.  He laid a hand on the elf’s shoulder, who passed him a grateful smile, and the Tevinter only nodded in response.  “I’ll be back later to check on the two of you,” he said, glancing between the elves before seeing himself out.  As the door to her inner chamber clicked shut, Solas sank down onto the bed, tucking a leg beneath him as he rested back against the headboard, thigh pressed to the edge of Niyera’s pillow.  The breath he exhaled took with it the clench of apprehension that had hunkered in the muscles of his lower back and shoulders, and he rested a hand against the crown of her head, fingers brushing lightly through her white tresses.

 

* * *

The clap of Cullen’s boots on the stone floor of the hall were followed in quick succession by Cassandra’s, and when she caught up with him, she snagged him by the elbow.  “Did that little exchange somehow seem appropriate in your head when you imagined it?”  Her voice was rough and her tone short as her grip on his arm spun Cullen to face her.  “What  _ are _ you talking about?” he barked at her, snatching his arm out of her grip.  “You know very well what I’m referring to.  Don’t be coy.  It doesn’t become you,” Cassandra snapped back, the fold of her arms over her chest tight and stiff as if it was an effort to restrain herself.  

 

Cullen glared toward the Inquisitor’s chambers over the top of the Seeker’s head, gesturing in that direction as he spoke, “The way he just comes and goes as he sees fit, regardless of all else...regardless of  _ her _ .”  His lips clamped down in a tight line over the rest of his words, but Cassandra was aware of the implication and picked up where he left off, saying, “Which is no concern of yours, not in this matter.”  Cullen’s gaze shot hotly down at the Seeker, and the curl of his mouth stretched the scar on his upper lip as he returned in kind, “You’re going to say that after  _ all _ this?  After what he  _ made _ her do?”  

 

The expression that consumed Cassandra’s features was a mixture of incredulity, concern, and annoyance.  “Cullen, she is a grown woman, not a child.  No one  _ made _ her do anything.  What happened was borne of her own  _ choices _ .  You cannot fault him for that.”  The commander gave a derisive snort as he gestured broadly, saying, “Of  _ course _ I can.”  Cullen’s eyes were lit brightly from behind with an anger that had been growing in him for days, and despite his efforts to hide it, she’d seen him beginning to slowly unravel.  This was about more than Solas.  It was even about more than Niyera.  

 

Cassandra’s voice lowered as she took a step closer to Cullen, and with a hint of trepidation in her voice as she spoke, she said, “You are being irrational and overwrought.  It’s the lyrium.”  It was a statement, not a question.  A measure of steel crept into the commander’s normally warm gaze, and he drew himself straighter:  “It’s  _ fine _ , Cassandra.   _ I’m _ fine.  You just...just leave it.   _ Leave _ it,” he hissed the last of the words and turned his back on her, stalking away at a brisk pace.  The Seeker could do little but stare after him, concern wrinkling the corners of her eyes.

 

* * *

Despite the late hour, despite how tired his body was, his mind was a constant stream of thoughts that he couldn’t still, couldn’t quiet, couldn’t ignore.  The lyrium was always a whisper of need, sometimes more faint than others, but always there.  But, tonight, a myriad other voices joined it -- Solas, Cassandra, even Niyera -- and they created a cacophony that was deafening.  It caused a restlessness in his legs that tossed and turned him beneath the weight of the furs and blankets of his bed, made a sheen of sweat bead across his brow, and a nervousness scream through every nerve as nausea churn in his stomach as if he was a cadet on the eve of a great battle.  This unsettled energy that plagued him was worse than the pain.  At least that he was accustomed to now.

 

Giving up on the idea of sleep entirely, he hauled himself to sit, the bend of his knees making a tent of the blankets as he rested bare elbows on them and threaded his fingers into his sweat-dampened locks.  This wasn’t the first he’d suffered because of withdrawal, but this was certainly the worst in recent memory, and it didn’t have the decency to plague him only at night when he could hide the effects.  It was all day, every day, for the past several days.  He curled in on himself, bowing his head until his fingers cradled the back of his head and his forearms were pressed tightly against his cheeks.  

 

He was running out of comforts to quiet this beast with -- first it had simply been a ride away from the keep, time with his thoughts, to gather and arrange them back into proper formation.  Then, it was physical exertion, training the Inquisition’s soldiers personally, hands on.  That had worked quite well for a while, but eventually it no longer quieted his mind.  Now, he was onto liquid courage, and his consumption of whiskey was becoming conspicuous among the tavern keeper and the servers.  He didn’t even bother to go into the place anymore, he just had a bottle sent up so he didn’t have to look anyone in the eye when it was delivered.  --  Throwing back the layers of bed coverings, he padded with bare feet to the ladder and climbed down.  From behind a book on the shelf, he retrieved a bottle and a heavy tumbler.  His chair creaked when he sat, and the * **pop*** of the cork leaving the bottle was his only companion as he leaned back and partook of the only medicine that seemed to help.

 

* * *

The days carried on in this way for a week or so; he wouldn’t admit it, but he’d lost track of the days.  They’d all begun to look and feel the same, bleeding from one unto the next like so many hours of pain strung together by the tenuous remains of his will.  Out in the courtyard, he’d passed by Cassandra, and noticing his gaunt, drawn features and the redness of his eyes, she’d pursued him.  They needed to talk, she’d said.  It was important, she said.  When he didn’t stop to acknowledge her words, she called after him, “Cullen!”  With his hand on the hilt of his sword, he never broke his stride as he threw back at her, “Not now, Seeker.  I’ve a new company of archers to inspect.  We’ll speak later.”  He never turned to see the expression of disappointed frustration on her face.

 

As he strode back and forth through the rows of archers, human and elven alike, their trainer followed at his elbow, detailing the paces the soldiers had been put through.  The elf that had overseen the archers’ training was one of the most skillful he’d seen, which is why she was contracted to instruct the Inquisition bowmen as well.  She was slender, with flaxen hair, tanned skin, and tawny golden eyes.  She was striking in her way, and she’d made no secret of her interest in him.  At the time, he’d been unreceptive to her advances.  First, he’d feigned ignorance, then shyness, but now with the bottle losing its effectiveness and all other remedies exhausted, he had not the energy or the desire to pretend either.

 

As a result, when the inspection was finished and pleasantries were dispensed with, he acquiesced to her persistent invitations.  So as not to attract attention, she had gone on her way first, and after some time, he had followed.  He was pulling off his gloves even as he strode down the empty hall toward her quarters, and when he arrived at her door, he rapped on the wood with bare knuckles.  The door opened before the last knock fell, and there was only a moment’s pause prior to his stepping into the doorway.  With no time wasted, her arms were around his neck, and he had bent to cup her ass in both hands.  With little effort, he lifted her, and she settled her legs around his waist.  With no fanfare, he kicked the door shut behind them.

 

Before he had time to second guess the wisdom of this decision, she entwined her tongue with his, and his sword belt joined his gloves on the floor.  He stepped over them even as she was stripping the mantle from his shoulders, and he twisted his fingers into her hair, yanking her head back enough to lower his mouth to her neck.  Their pace was feverish as pieces of clothing and gear fell from them like leaves from a tree in autumn.  

 

He'd had every intention of carrying her to the room’s small bed, but only made it as far as the wall at its foot.  Her eager moans filled his ears, the rake of her nails on his back set his nerves ablaze.  Tingling sensations seared down his spine and through his body to pulse in his cock.  Already thoughts of lyrium and the shakes of withdrawal were dissolving, and he dimly wondered why he waited so long to test this method of distraction.  They were both bare to the waist as he pressed into her, smooth rolls of his hips grinding her against the wall.

 

His hands were hungry on her skin, groping the ample mounds of her breasts and forcing eager fingers past her lips as he lowered his face to take a nipple between his teeth.  When the strain of his desire became painful beneath the restriction of his breeches, he returned the elf to her feet, and they clumsily fumbled with each other's pants until his rested around his thighs and she'd stepped out of hers entirely.  With a hop, she was back in his arms, one hand clutching at her ass the other groped to set himself in the cleft between her legs.  Digging in with her heels and using the sublime strength of her legs to leverage herself, he easily found his way.  His first thrust into her was hard, fast, and deep.  

 

Her cry was loud and throaty, and he could feel the lurid smile on her lips as she pressed them to his shoulder, pinching skin with teeth.   As the warmth of her enwreathed him, his legs trembled briefly under the sheer weight of the pleasure.  It smoothed the edges of his body’s need for the lyrium, choked the fitfulness of this nerves, and buried the tangled mass of his thoughts in an over abundance of sensation.  Each time she purposefully clenched around his cock, he sank a little deeper, fell a little further from himself.  His free hand clutched without success at the wall as he buried his face into her neck, and every carelessly rough thrust into her wrung from his lips a moan. 

 

Consumed by sensation and the sudden relief from the burden of his addiction, his thoughts turned, painting an image of Niyera against the dark curtain of his lidded gaze.  Suddenly, it was her warmth rising and falling on his length, meeting each of his thrusts.  It was her pulse he felt against his lips as he suckled at sweat-salted skin.  And, it was her breasts flush against his chest, stiff peaks achingly pressed into his skin.  His fingers clenched unconsciously, biting into to the ripe flesh of her buttock, and he heard a voice against his ear.  It moaned, panted, peppered his hearing with his own name, but it wasn't the right somehow. 

 

His bracing hand fell away from the wall and clamped down over her mouth, silencing the archer before she could shatter the fantasy.  With all of his weight, he bore her into the wall to help support her weight as his pace quickened.  Short, hard thrusts brought her voice in muffled cries behind his fingers, and she clawed at his shoulders and back hard enough to draw blood.  He wasn't certain if it was a reaction of pain or of pleasure, but he also wasn't certain it was possible to stop now in either case.  

 

He came to believe the latter was the more likely case as he felt her begin to clench around his cock.  Her back bowed away from the wall, forcing herself against each pump of his hips, and the intensity of sensation snatched the remains of his restraint from his grasp.  With her body pinned helplessly, he took full advantage, savagely and erratically pounding into her as his own climax clenched inside him.  A strangled cry tore from his lips as he came violently and in such volume that he spilled from her with each successive thrust, his seed mixing with her slick to coat his balls.  When tension finally unfurled and stilled the need to keep thrusting, he staggered away from the wall and they both collapsed breathlessly onto the bed.  

 

He lay on his back, feet resting on the floor, and he ran a hand across his pelvic bone, splaying fingers to grip the base of his shaft as he tried to catch his breath.  Beside him, the elf rested on her stomach, one arm trapped beneath her body and the other curled under her head as she recovered.   Residual tremors clutched at his sack and ran into his belly each time he thought back, Niyera’s face and voice replacing that of the elf beside him.  With the passage of long minutes, his breaths became measured and even again, and he found himself tugging on his length as his mind wandered.  

 

Palm against the smooth of his head, the sensitivity made him gasp, and his companion drew a hand down the length of his torso, settling her touch against the dip beneath his hip bone.   Under the urging of his hand, his cock was coaxed stiff, and he issued a guttural growl as he gave a hard tug.  With a lilt of amusement in her voice, the elf at his side murmured, “Again?  So soon?” even as Cullen stood from the bed.  With no warning, he slapped his hands down in her calves and drug her roughly to the edge of the bed.  

 

A shriek of surprise fell from her as she gripped the bed coverings and they bunched beneath her as she was pulled toward him.  The pitch of her voice fell when he ran his hands beneath her body, roughly massaging her breasts before pulling heavy fingers down her belly.  When he reached the mound between her legs, he cupped it and urged her body upward until she was perched on her knees on the edge of the bed.  Her plump ass swayed before him, and his hands rested on its curves as he surveyed her posture.  When he leaned forward, his body embraced hers, but it was fleeting as he fed his hand into her hair and pushed, slowly but firmly until her cheek was against the bundle of blankets beneath her.  

 

When he withdrew, one hand traced the line of her spine, and the shiver that coursed through her body was transferred to his.  The thought of Niyera trembling like that at his touch played havoc on his desire, and his cock jumped in response.  Splaying his fingers against the small of her back, he pressed a thumb between her cheeks, brushing the edge of the pucker he found.  The sound that fell from her lips tugged a groan from him, and the sight of her leaning back, searching for his cock with the slick between her legs was all it took.  

 

His hand on her waist held her in place against the force of his entrance, falling heavy and hilt-deep in her wetness in one smooth stroke.  The sensitivity still lingering in both of them caused an echo of moans, and she turned her face into the covers to muffle her whimpering cries.  With his guidance, a hand against her back and another on her hip, he coaxed her into a steady rhythm.  She followed his non-verbal instruction exceptionally well, then it was just a matter of resting his hands on her ass as he watched with satisfaction the smooth pumping of her hips as she fucked herself on his length.  His head tipped back, and rumbling moans vibrated in his chest.  

 

He began to lose himself in his fantasy, flaxen hair replaced by white, tanned skin paling to ivory.  Her voice was the only thing he couldn’t change by simply closing his eyes.  Every time she became more verbal than a moan or a cry of pleasure, he slapped the firm curve of her ass, and it never failed move her back to incoherent sounds.  Before long, his handprint was emblazoned on her skin in pink flesh.   For every bit that their first time had been frenzied and brief, this time was blissfully slow and long.  --  And so it was for what seemed like days on end that he sated both his thirst for lyrium and his hunger for the Inquisitor.   But, like every other comfort, it soon turned cold and ineffective against his cravings, and he once again found himself more desperate and unstable than before.

 

* * *

* * *

It was a week before she did much more than sleep, but eventually Niyera took to sitting up for short periods, eating, and drinking again.  The color had begun to return her to skin, and her eyes weren’t quite as sunken as they were before.  In the meantime, visitors came and went, but from the time she’d followed him out of the Fade, Solas had seldom left her side.  He’d attended to her without question or complaint, holding her while she slept, reading to her when she was restless, and comforting her when the inevitable darkness of the night returned to haunt her dreams.

 

He had only just left to fetch dinner for the both of them when she decided to test the measure of her strength.  The scent of medicinals hung heavy in the air, and she badly craved a breath of fresh air.  --  Gingerly, she slipped her legs over the edge of bed and waited impatiently for the throbbing in her side to stop.  With an arm curled cross her belly, she took a breath, held it, and pushed herself to her feet.   She’d have sworn that floor beneath her tilted just then, like the deck of a ship on a storm-tossed sea.  

 

She swayed, thinly contemplating the wisdom of her decision to try this, but eventually grew reasonably steady.  Hobbling to the end of the bed where her robe lay draped over the foot, she took it in hand and eased it over her left shoulder.  She couldn't put her arm through the sleeve, but she cinched the silken belt around her waist.  Holding onto the footboard for balance, she took a series of tentative steps that brought her to her desk.  Once there, she braced her hand on its edge, pausing to gaze through the door that led to the balcony.  She was light-headed but determined.   


 

From across the room, she heard a knock at the door.  “Come in,” she called.  She could tell by the sound of the footsteps that it was Cullen.  She turned to greet him, but the sudden movement of her head made it swim, and she felt her knees go weak.  Even as she struggled to grip the edge of her desk with both hands, she heard Cullen's voice behind her, “Whoa, whoa, careful,” and she felt the grip of his hands on her hips to steady her, the firmness of his body against her back.   Her eyes fluttered as she tried to regain her footing and eventually rose to stand more firmly on her feet, the action drawing the line of her body against his.  “I'm fine, I've got it now,” she murmured though his hands never left her hips.  

  
  


_ With his duties complete, Cullen had returned to his office long enough to shed his armor and clean off the day’s sweat and grime and change his clothes before he went to pay the Inquisitor a visit.  In the week he’d been occupied with his dalliances with the archer, she’d been regaining her strength, and he was told she was looking more and more like herself.  Despite that the  remedy of the archer’s bed had ceased to be balm to his unquenchable lust for lyrium and the persistent shake of his hands, he thought he was well enough to see the Inquisitor’s progress for himself.  --  At the welcome of her voice, he’d entered her chamber only to find her unsteady on her feet.  She’d begun to fall, but a quick reaction on his part allowed him reached her just in time.  His hands caught on her hips to steady her, and as she straightened, she drew the line of her body against his.  He stiffened, something gripping low in his body, and he found himself unable to pull his hands away from her. _

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

She felt his chest swell with the deep breath he took as his fingers flexed his grip.  “You shouldn't be out of bed.  Someone should have been here to help you,” he said, the tone of his voice having dropped an octave.  “There was someone.  Solas just went to-,” and he interrupted her words with a sound of annoyance, and she could hear the roll of his eyes in his voice.  “Solas...Niyera, I don't understand why you would let him return after what he did.”  She closed her eyes, as she bowed her head with a sigh.  “Not now, I don't have the ener-,” she implored, her words faltering when she felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder and the tickle of the silk of her robe as it fell away.   It sent an unpleasant shiver through her.  “Why him, Niyera?  I don’t understand,” his voice had grown husky as she felt his breath on the bare skin of her shoulder and the brush of his lips, feather-light.   Her shoulder hitched as she tried to turn from him and said,  “Don’t.”  

  
  


_ He breathed her in as she pressed against him, and a heady dizziness made his eyes flutter as his fingers flexed on her.  “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he intoned, following with, “Someone should have been here to help you.”  When she confessed that it was Solas that had left her here alone, irritation crept through him, and he couldn’t keep it from his voice when he spoke.  “I don’t understand why you would let him return after what he did.”  When she bowed her head to escape his gaze, she demurred, and he laid a hand on her shoulder.  At his touch, her robe slipped down her arm.  “Why him?” Cullen questioned, wondering why it had ever been Solas, why she had ever accepted the manner of treatment he offered her.  He was always in his head, disdaining and preferring his Fade liaisons to her company.  The tremble that passed through her body called him to kiss the skin that was exposed.  Perhaps she was finally beginning to see what he’d been trying to tell her about the apostate.  When she said, “ _ Don’t stop _ ,” he knew he’d been correct. _

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

His touch retreated from her body, allowing her to turn to face him, only to lean in and fix his hands on the edge of the desk.  His face was tilted downward, and she could feel the heat of his body against her.  There was a shaky rise and fall to his chest as his breaths were drawn at a quicker pace.  A sort of unsettling energy radiated from him, and it prickled apprehension along every nerve.  Uncomfortably, she shifted in the cage of his arms, the muscles in her legs growing shaky beneath her.  This was the first time she’d been on her feet without help since falling prey to the templars more than a week ago, and the effort was making her light-headed.  “You need to-...let me go, Cullen,” she pleaded, muscles growing tense as fear churned in her chest.  Something was wrong.  This wasn’t like him.  

  
  


_ He wished she would face him; he wanted to look upon her as she acknowledged he’d been right all along about the apostate.  Cullen wanted to see it in her eyes when she realized her feelings for him.  Hesitantly, he withdrew his hands from her hips, giving her the opportunity to turn, and she did, the brush of her body against his setting a fire to burning at the center of his chest.  He held his breath and fixed his hands to the edge of the desk of steady himself, the emotion of the moment was causing the fringes of his thoughts to fray.  She trembled beneath him, and he recognized it as a mirror of his own barely veiled desire.  “ _ Never let me go, Cullen _ ,” she breathed against his cheek, and a coarse shiver wracked his body and quickened the pace of his breath. _

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

Cullen didn’t look up as he tugged at the loose end of the silk belting her robe, and unknotted, it slipped to the floor as her robe fell open.  “ _ I _ would never abandon you, not like  _ he _ did,” and his words drew off as he slipped a hand beneath the robe, caressing the bare skin between the bandage around her torso and the waist of her smalls.  She couldn’t banish the trembling that started in her legs and moved steadily upward along her body, a combination of the weakness she still suffered in the wake of her injuries and her growing fear of the situation.  She couldn’t make sense of it.  “If you would just,” he paused, insistently pressing his knee against hers until he slid a leg between, “let me love you.”  She couldn’t help the tears that had begun to well  as he leaned into her, never having once met her eyes.  The bend he was forcing into her body tugged at stitches and bruised muscles, etching pain on her face as a tear tumbled down her cheek.  “You’re...hurting me, Cullen.  Please...stop,” her voice was desperate as she fought against the dizziness in her head and the tremors that were constant in her muscles.  She pushed weakly at his chest with a clenched fist, but he was unmovable as he hitched his thigh into the cleft between her legs.  She choked on her voice as she squeezed her eyes shut, forcing hot trails of tears to fall.

  
  


_ With all tenderness, he tugged at the loose end of the silk belting her robe, and it swept open, revealing the smooth of her ivory skin beneath.  He dared to touch that skin, ghosting his fingers across its warmth.  She was softer than he had imagined.  “I would never abandon you,” he whispered reverently as he caressed her, and the words teased a tremble from her form.  Her pleasure bent his lips in a faint smile.  “If you will just let me love you,” he pleaded, and when his knee accidentally brushed against hers, they parted to him, and she settled lightly astride his thigh.  Her warmth drew a shudder from him that originated deep in his chest and passed from him as a hitching breath.  “ _ I know you’ll never hurt me, Cullen _ ,” she confessed, and he couldn’t help but lean into her, pressing his body to hers.  He was flooded with relief that she finally understood, finally trusted in him as he’d always desired. _

 

~ ~ ~ ~

 

“Niyera?” came the hard ring of Solas’s voice from behind Cullen.  He’d entered without notice, setting the tray he’d carried on the seat of the couch before he strode toward them.  At the sound of Solas at his back, something seemed to snap in Cullen, and he tensed momentarily as his eyes finally peeled up to meet Niyera’s.  It was like a veil had suddenly fallen away, and his features contorted.  “ _ Maker _ , “ he breathed, a look of dismay and horror flashing through his eyes as he really looked at her, seeing her for the first time since he’d entered her room.  As if having been physically struck, Cullen staggered back, and her breath left her in a rush as her legs collapsed beneath her.  “ _ Maker, Niyera _ ... _ Inquisitor _ ,” the former templar stammered, suddenly flushed and sweating, nearly bumping into Solas as the elf swept in to catch the Inquisitor before she hit the ground.  Hooking an arm beneath Niyera’s knees and carefully lifting her into his arms, Solas narrowed his eyes on Cullen in a glare that could have turned water to ice by will alone.  Had she not been in his arms, perhaps it would have.  As she loosely clung to Solas and buried her face against his neck, the commander continued backing toward the stairs.  “ _ I’m...Maker, I’m  _ **_so_ ** _ sorry _ ,” and that was the last thing he offered before he escaped down the stairs.

 

Niyera curled her fingers into the collar of Solas’s tunic, her tears hot on his skin as he conveyed her to the bed, gently depositing her before sitting at her side.  Worry clearly creased his brow and drew a frown along the line of his mouth as he pushed her hair back from her face with both hands.  Cradling her cheeks, he wiped at her tears with his thumbs and inquired softly, “Are you alright?  Did he hurt you?”  Numbly, she shook her head, clutching at his wrists with as much strength as she had.  “Shhh,” he murmured as he leaned to press a tender kiss to her forehead, “I will take care of it.”  Her grip tightened, and the plea in her voice struck him at the center of his chest, “Solas, please don’t leave.”  He leaned back far enough to shake his head, saying, “No, of course not.”  He eased from her grasp long enough to cross to the other side of the bed, and he settled down along her good side, opening his arms to her.  Without hesitation, she drew against him, hands gripping his tunic as she pressed her face into the hollow of his throat.  He folded his arms around her, resting his chin on the top of her head as he held her in silence.

 

* * *

* * *

He’d lost track of time, of himself, as he fled from Niyera’s quarters, the sheer monstrosity of his actions feebling both his mind and his body.  When he’d finally returned to himself, he was in the loft above his office, huddled in the corner, and beating the heels of his hands against the sides of his head.  He had no idea how long he’d been this way, who might have seen him between the hall and here, or what he may have said to anyone he encountered.  His fingers were numb when he finally unfurled his fists, and wiping his hands down his face found his cheeks wet with tears.  Sweat plastered his curls to his forehead, and he was dizzy and on the verge of vomiting.  

 

When he tried to stand, his legs were trembling so badly that he had to crawl to the ladder and very nearly fell several times on the way down.  Regardless of how much he struggled to make sense of what had happened, he couldn’t fix his thoughts on it enough to rationalize it.  There was no logic in it.  Even though he  _ knew _ what she had said, he’d  _ heard  _ something altogether different in the moment.  And, the look on her face when he finally let her go?  Abruptly, he dry heaved so forcefully that it took him to his knees and he retched, but there was nothing to bring up.  Surrendering to the pull of gravity, he collapsed, laying there on the floor, his skin hot against the cold stone.

 

He faded in and out of consciousness, though for how long he wasn’t sure.  But, when he finally felt able to move from his prone position, it took every ounce of will he had to drag himself to his feet.  Pain sank claws deep in his guts, tore at his muscles, and he staggered forward, falling hard against the bookcase.  The collision caused one of the books on the shelf to tumble to the floor, and when he looked up, he came face to face with a thin-necked bottle of amber salvation.  With shaky hands, he clutched at the bottle and tore the cork out with his teeth.  Tipping the bottle to his mouth, he drank deeply, greedily, a trail of whiskey escaping one corner of his lips.

 

It was a sharp knock on his door that forced Cullen to lower the bottle, and he swiped the back of his hand across his mouth as he stared toward the sound.  Should he answer?  Should he not?  It was likely that they would come in either way.  Discarding the bottle on the corner of his desk, he called out, “Come in,” though he wasn’t capable of keeping the tremble from his voice.  He also couldn’t make the shaking in his hands go away, so he crossed his arms, tucking his hands into his pits as he lean back to sit on his desk.

 

The door didn’t open, there was no answer to his call, and a few moments later, there was another sharp series of knocks.  His lips were suddenly dry, and he licked them as he stared down the door with a heightened sense of paranoia and apprehension.  What would they say when they discovered him like this?  How long would he hide to keep that moment from coming?  He groused inwardly as he pushed away from the desk, the force of his movement sliding it back, causing the wood to squawk against the stone in protest.  Uneven steps brought him to the door, and he swallowed hard against the taste of bile in the back of his throat.  

 

When he pulled the door open and the candle light fell past him and into the darkness, he found Solas standing in his shadow.  The elf’s head was bowed slightly, and Cullen could feel the whisky threatening to rise again in the back of his throat.  “Solas, I-,” he started, and all at once, Cullen’s voice and his breath left him in a wheeze as a bolt of force caught him squarely in the chest and pitched him up into the air like a rag doll.  

 

With the commander no longer occupying the doorway, Solas stepped over the threshold, and the door swung shut behind him.  The apostate’s eyes had taken on a shimmer of silvery white in the few seconds since Cullen had opened the door, and before the former templar’s body could start its descent to the ground, another invisible fist plowed into him, slamming him with all the force of an avalanche into the floor.  Cullen could only groan as his head cracked against the stones, and he raised his hands to his face.  Light danced behind his eyelids, and  _ every _ bone in his body ached.  The illumination in Solas’s gaze ebbed away, though Cullen never saw it, as the elf calmly crouched at his side.  He laid a hand against the underside of the commander’s chin, digging in with slender, but deceptively strong fingers to the man’s jaw.  Solas forcefully tilted Cullen’s face toward him, holding him in place until the former templar opened his eyes to meet Solas’s gaze.

 

Without raising his voice, the elf braced an arm against his knee and said, “You will  _ never _ put your hands on her again.  If I find otherwise, I will make your time at the Ferelden Circle seem like a pleasant afternoon daydream.”  Solas’s head canted to one side as he regarded Cullen, and the composure in both his voice and expression made his words all the more chilling.  Heat rose along the commander’s neck and settled warmly in the apples of his cheeks, replacing the chill that the stone had bestowed.  Pain pulsed in time with his heartbeat through his skull, and it was a conscious effort to keep his eyes focused on Solas.  He knew he deserved this.

 

The line of Solas’s jaw set, and a small muscle near his ear pulsed as he gave Cullen’s chin a shake.  “Give me some indication that you understand what I have said, Commander.”  The former templar let his arms fall limply against the cold stone floor and he closed his eyes, unable to hold the elf’s gaze any longer.  “I understand,” he uttered, the miserable tone in his voice a mixture of shame, pain, and drunkenness.  “Very well,” the apostate said simply, shoving Cullen’s face to the side as he rose to his feet.  With a snap of his hands, Solas straightened his tunic and strode toward the door.  Without anything further, the elf left, and former templar only breathed again when he heard the door click shut.

 

* * *

After Cullen had fled, Solas had to keep a tight rein on his anger.  At that moment, his place was with her, and he dried her tears and held her until she finally stopped shaking.  Eventually, sleep claimed her, and when he was certain she would not wake, he slipped away to satisfy his own need for justice.  He knew her strength, knew she was perfectly capable of taking her own pound of flesh as repayment for the offense, but he couldn’t leave this trespass unanswered.  For every bit she was fierce, she was fragile, especially now, and it stirred in him a need to protect that he could not ignore.  It was only enhanced by the love he bore for her, and regardless of what had transpired between them or was yet to occur, he was certain that would never change.

 

When he arrived back in Niyera’s chambers, the only light was that from the fireplace, and it lit the lines of her face with warmth.  He found her just as he’d left her, tucked beneath the blankets, cheek turned to nestle into the pillow.  The draw of his arms over his head pulled his tunic free of his body, and he folded it, along with his pants, on the seat of the chair at her beside.  Bare-chested, wearing only his smalls, Solas sank down onto the bed beside her, resting atop the covers as he stretched out onto his back.  As if sensing his presence, Niyera snuggled toward the warmth of his body and draped a hand across his chest without ever waking.  With the smallest measure of a smile, he curled his fingers around hers and remained that way until he joined her in sleep.


End file.
